When policies collide: Possibilities and Challenges of Practice-based Research

This paper addresses possibilities and challenges on the methodological level during the initial phase of a practice-based research project. The research project aims to contribute to knowledge about pupils’ participation and influence in decision-making from the perspectives of teachers, leaders, and pupils in Sweden’s Art and Music Schools. A further aim is to contribute to the development of practice-based research. The project is inspired by collaborative action research in the sense that, through collaboration between the researcher(s) and the practitioner(s), action and reflection are interconnected to developing the practice. One main challenge is that, even though the research project focuses on pupils’ participation and influence, the pupils’ voices have so far been silenced. The challenge is a consequence of two policies that collide: the convention on the rights of the children, which ensures the rights of the child to participate or not; and the Ethics Review Act, which ensures protection rights. Hence, the approach to conducting practice-based research and making visible the pupils’ voices have exposed ethical challenges with possible implications for the aim of the study, the design, and the methodology. The next step of this project is to find a way to include the pupils’ voices. The challenges during this project have not discouraged me from seeing the potential of practice-based research for developing Sweden’s Art and Music Schools. Rather, they might contribute to the development of this project and the field of practice-based research. When working to improve collaboration between research and practice, we must continue to discuss and reflect on ethical and methodological challenges to develop ways of critically examining and addressing contradicting policies.